Notre Dame Apparition + Green Orb + Angels In Disquise...

About two years ago I went to Notre Dame here in N Indiana with my Grandchildren, their Mother and their other Grandmother. We went to mass and afterwards visited the grotto behind the church built like the one in France. I took several pictures and on the last photo I saw a flash of light come down in the picture. I have never before or since seen this happen with my camera. If you open the picture and look closely you can see an apparition with hands

clasped, and you can make out clothing like a nuns or bible time clothes. She appears to be looking down at my granddaughter who is lighting a candle. I will always treasure this picture and have made an eight by ten and have in on display in my lawyers cabinet. It was only one of the times in my life that I felt the presence of something Holy visiting me or my family...

When my oldest grandchild was about 4-5 months old she had spent the night with us so Mom and Dad could have some alone time. We had fixed up a little pink bedroom for her and found a really nice crib at a garage sale. I needed all this because I babysat her everyday.

We lived out in the country and it was a beautiful fall day. Baby had done just fine and had a wonderful evening being spoiled by Mamaw and Papaw. I got her ready for bed and it was to be her first time in the crib in a room by herself. I felt panicky but knew it would be better for all of us if she moved into her own little room for the night.

It was just about daylight and I jolted awake and sprang up and ran down the hall to the baby's room. Just as I entered her room the sun was just starting to light up the sky and there on the wall above the side of her crib was an emerald green orb. It was about the size of a small apple. She was awake and smiling and cooing at the orb and did not notice me at all. As I looked at the orb the most euphoric feeling came over me. It was the most joy I have ever experienced in my life. To this day I can't get past how wonderful I felt. Sadly the orb faded away and disappeared all the way. I looked all over that room to see what could have possible made the orb. Nothing could I ever find. Baby and I went on with our day and I never saw the orb again. 

 About two years after that she was finally starting to talk pretty good and I took her to the mall. As I put her in her stroller she wanted to know why I was belting her in. I told her I didn't want anybody to steal her. She told me she was alright because her lights were in front of her. I asked her tell me about her lights. She said, don't you see them? They are always there....

One day when I still worked as a nurse I was coming home from work and taking the back country roads home. I came up on a car with two elderly people driving about 20 miles an hour. No matter how hard I tried I could not get around them. The man driving would pull right out in front of me when I tried to go around.  I was getting pretty stressed but finally gave up, It was about a six mile ride at about 20 miles an hour... As I rode along I started to think about this and that. Up ahead I saw police lights and a tow truck. As I got closer I saw a car in a ditch and it was on my side of the road heading the wrong way. The police were not letting the cars go through till the car was pulled from the ditch. As I sat there I realized the car in front of me was gone, just gone, vanished... It had not turned off and it had been right in front of me. The first thing I thought of was that it had been angels, slowing me down so that the car would not hit me head on, it was not my time...

Can you say Ghost Dog?

As I have said I get a lot of vintage items that have gone through my house for years since selling on eBay but there was one box lot that is not easy to forget...

(just a stock picture of a Shriner)

The auction stated that it was the liquidation of an estate from a gentleman who was a Shriner and I thought well I have seen those sparkly fez's sell pretty good so away I went. I wound up buying quite a bit of this man's personal items such as hats and framed memorabilia. He had won quite a few awards being a Shriner and he must have been an officer because his fez was really fancy. I also wound up with a nice velvet hat of his like men used to wear during the 40's. I take lots of staged pictures and could use that hat as a prop.

It was late when we got home from the auction but I am a night owl so I went to my office to unload my loot.  After laying the items out on my work table and getting a closer look at the stuff I turned around and sat down at my computer to do some price research on eBay.I had been at it for about 15 minutes when from right behind me a loud whistle sounded, like somebody whistled for a dog! I about jumped out of my jeans! The hubbs had already went upstairs to bed but I yelled up the steps anyway and he was sleeping.... our dog was just standing in the middle of the floor staring at me.  I racked my brain trying to figure out what had just happened but I just could not figure it out.... eventually I went on to bed.

Our upstairs has two bedrooms, one in the front of the house and one on the backside. We sleep on the backside because it is larger and more quiet. The front room is small and does not have a heat vent or ac vent in it so we keep the door closed.  However in that room is a fancy little cabinet with a glass door that I was keeping my props in for photos. That next day I added a couple of the hats from the estate auction, closed the glass door and the bedroom door and had forgotten about the whistle I had heard and went on my merry way.

That next evening we came home from a dinner date and were getting ready to head upstairs for bed, I was finishing something up in the kitchen and all of a sudden my husband started yelling that it sounded like there was a little dog upstairs whining... He wanted me to come by the stairwell and listen, I could not hear it as well as him but did hear something faintly.  He went on to bed and I followed a few minutes later.  I finally made it upstairs and was standing in the hallway talking to him and I heard it much better this time. It was coming from the front bedroom.  Chills ran up and down my back and my hair stood on end but I managed to go over and and slowly open the door, the whining stopped but I saw no dog.  Although we were both rather freaked out we just didn't really talk about it, it was like we both knew it was other worldly and we were just going to ignore it as much as possible.

For about three days the whining continued, I finally decided to keep that bedroom door open and it seemed to stop. One evening my husband went up to take a bath and from downstairs it sounded almost like somebody was running around or stomping in the the bedroom closet. My husband was in the bathroom when I went up to see what the heck was going on, he had not even came out of the bathroom the whole time...


I had a sewing sleepover for my grand babies and their cousins, one of the cousins stated they didn't know we had a little dog... I said we don't and they swore one was just at the end of the dinning room table. At the time we only had a large Australian Shepherd. A couple of weeks later I was sitting in the living room facing the stairwell door, it was very late and I was thinking I should just go to bed when I heard dog toenails coming down the wooden stairs, plain as day. I thought our dog had been up there and was coming down when I looked over and realized he was laying two feet away from me. Looking back at the steps I saw the first full bodied apparition I have ever seen. It was a small dark dog, with long silky looking hair, like a sheltie mix. It paid no attention to me whatsoever and walked straight to the kitchen almost like it was on a mission. I got up dumbfounded from my chair and walked to the kitchen. There was no dog to be found. My dog did not seem to hear or see what I heard.

this is the staircase where I saw the dog..

(the dog looked something like this)

I was starting to get a little panic stricken. I tried to find something about seeing a dog apparition by researching online but all I found was a bunch of mumbo jumbo so I tried to think it through on my own. I prayed about it, and it stayed on my mind constantly. I wasn't exactly scared but very confused as to what the heck was going on. Then I thought about the whistle I had heard and I felt it connected right to the dog sounds and the dog ghost I had seen. What if it was the man whose estate items I had bought, he had passed away and his family had sold all his belongings.... so maybe he was kind of sticking with his stuff, maybe even his hats that I had in my cabinet!

That next day I removed his hats and laid them on the back porch. Not sure what to do with them I just kinda left them out there for a day or two.  I had left my dog out in the backyard one night and rested my arms on the railing watching him for a few minutes and it felt like someone touched my back, not slightly but like the real deal. I decided that I would pitch the hats and walked them out to the trash.  As I returned to the porch I heard the whine of a little dog, almost like a puppy but I could not tell from where it came.  I thought maybe that would take care of the situation, yeah right... There was the night I was up to use the facilities and I started to hear something clicking around in the hallway, like it was clicking up one wall and down the other. My husband even got up and was listening to it, just as we started to talk about it a dog howled from the bottom of the steps, we had never heard our dog howl before. My husband ran downstairs and our  Aussie dog was in the kitchen on his mat sound asleep and never reacted at all...

It was almost a year later and I was awoken by a dog on my bed digging my feet just as hard as it could, it actually hurt! But I saw nothing, it was broad daylight.  We still will feel a dog jump up on the side of the bed in the middle of the night and it can freak you out. But its getting fewer  and farther between now. Its been almost two years since the awful howling sound.

However... our new rescue dog (Bitsi Boo my little Jack Russell)  has taken to waking me up in the middle of the night growling at the ceiling... I hope she does not keep this up.

There are still one or two things to tell but they will come out another time...

It came from across the sewing room!

For years now I have been a seller on eBay. First I sold antique and vintage clothing buttons and then went to other vintage items that struck my fancy. Now I list for a partner who frequents the auction houses looking for domestic items for me to sell on paulsdomestiques1.  He does the leg work and I do the research and listing. So you can imagine I have a lot of domestic paraphernalia laying around. Two years ago I turned half of my basement into a sewing room. Complete with machines for the granddaughters and their friends to learn to sew.  When school started back up I decided I would sew down in the catacombs by myself.... yeah right....

For about a week I sat down there and sewed by myself. It seemed that every time I would go upstairs for a tea break and come back down to my machine the tension would be almost falling off my machine. I would fix it, sew for a couple of hours and it would do just fine. I thought maybe it was vibrating itself loose or something, but it wasn't, I checked.

One evening I was sewing away and stopped to check my underneath stitching to make sure my bobbin tension was alright. I was just staring at the stitching when from across the room a button flew, a little china calico button. It hit me on the cheek.  Now.. I  had another disturbance while upstairs but it had been awhile.  I have been told that energy or ghosts or whatever can stick with their possessions, especially possessions they loved while alive...

Well every  machine I own is at least my age or older and some way older. And I do have lots and lots of sewing machines, old antique sewing baskets filled to overflowing with old needle packets, threads and all manner of millinery items. I have found marbles, little trucks and cars and lots of little toy things in these baskets as well. Sewing machine drawers overflow with bits of antique laces and rick racks of every imaginable color. Stacks and stacks of vintage fabrics and unfinished quilt tops and blocks.  Now I don't know how others feel but I love any quilt block I manage to make with all my heart and treat it as something special but I hope I can let them go once I buy the farm, if ya know what I mean!

To get back to the button story you can imagine I was kind of freaked out. I slowly stood up from my Singer stool and walked to the staircase and ran up the steps! Although I work downstairs sometimes on machines and what not (when the hubbs is home) I have never sewn down there again.  Oh don't worry, I have machines upstairs too. I think something was trying to get my goat. Messing up my tension and trying to get my attention my flipping a button at me. I still have the button. Another interesting fact is that I would have never have left a calico china button laying around down in the basement in the first place, they are very collectible and I have quite a few. I have no idea how it got there in the first place.She t must have had it in her pocket I guess!

(not the button that was thrown)

I have several other spooky stories related to vintage items that have passed through my home, maybe I will jot them down for you in a day or two. It seems this time of year brings about chills, don't you think? Stay under the covers if you can!

Uncommon Singer 15-75 in black yet! Georgeous!

Looky what I just listed on ebay this evening, the uncommon, scarce and beautiful Singer 15-75. Its in great shape too, if you care to look at the listing it is item number 150663518751.  I just love this good old machine!

Somebody is walking upstairs and it ain't me!

When our son was little we lived in a 1940's two story. The day we moved in to that place it felt like it was occupied already. Being our first home purchase I was still in love with its golden oak woodwork, open staircase and upstairs laundry shoot that went straight down to the basement, what fun.  The first night we moved in I was on the stairwell landing putting up a shade when it felt like somebody picked up a strand of my hair and held it up a second or two before letting it fall. Chills ran up and down my spine as I continued to hang the shade and I felt the whole time like somebody was glaring at me from behind.

About a week later I sat watching tv with our son while my husband worked second shift and every once in awhile it sounded like somebody was walking back and forth upstairs. As time marched on it came to be a regular occurance. Sometimes they walked softly, sometimes it sounded like they were pacing, it seemed to only happen once it was dark outside.

As I did laundry I could always feel a presence watching me, I would run all the way back upstairs once I was done folding the clothes, it felt like something was after me.  One day as I went down the basement steps the whole staircase collapsed with me on it! We had to rebuild a whole new set of steps.  The steps that fell never gave any indication that they were weak, never made noises and we certainly didn't notice where they were coming apart anywhere either.

Soon we got a new puppy, we named her Sissy. She was about 10 weeks old and still pretty little so we needed a place to keep her safe while I shopped or whatever. Our basement stairwell had a landing so we made two  half doors, one for the basement door entrance and one just on the other edge of the landing. I placed Sissy in the space and went to the store. When I returned home Sissy was not in the space yet both half doors were locked. She was just a tiny puppy and there was no way she could have jumped over the door but there she lay on the basement floor only half concience! I quickly scooped her up and carried her upstairs to our bedroom and placed her on the bed till I could figure out what to do. It was too late to go to the vet so I watched her closely all night and she growled at the wall off and on as if she was watching something.  She sustained a concussion and was kept at the vets for about three days. After which I never left her alone until she was full grown.  Our neighbor told me that whenever we went away our dog raised "hell."  Not like she was barking at a sound but like she was literally fighting something...  She was never injured again however and seemed fairly comfortable as long as someone was home.

One spring I decided that I would paper the spare bedroom. The afternoon I finished it I was so proud, it looked so bright and cheerful.  I went back down the stairs and began to make supper. Later that evening I went back upstairs. Just as I crested the top of the staircase a smell hit me that about knocked me backwards. All I can say that it smelled like was a dead animal or something. It also had a woodsmoke smell to it as well, almost like rotten bacon. The smell came from the newly papered bedroom. We tried everything to get rid of it. We could not imagine what was causing it! My husband decided he would look in the attic above the room, possibly an animal had gotten in somehow and died and that was causing the smell. We had never been in our attic before, it was never finished or anything but away he went. He crawled all over it and not a sign of a dead anything. The only thing that was up there was a child's bed, just the headboard and foot board. It was so strange because you would have thought it would have been placed close to the attic entrance due to there was no floor, but no, it was clear in the front of the peak... never understood that one.  The smell continued just as strong as at first... We kept the door closed and a towel rolled at the door bottom, trying to keep the smell in the room.

Later that week our son had gone to bed, he was about five years old. I had said goodnight and went back downstairs.  About an hour later I jumped clear off the couch. There was a noise so loud upstairs like an explosion almost! I ran up the stairs my feet barely touching the steps and there in the hallway stood my son's bed pillow, standing straight up against the wall. It would have had to been thrown on a curve to land where it did. My son was sound asleep, no pillow under his head. I picked him up and carried him back downstairs till my husband came home. We didn't know what to make of it but I started to get really scared at this point.  The smell continued in the spare room... The walking continued and the steps seemed to be heavier.

One night I had a family member over and she and I had been laying across my bed looking at decorating magazines and talking. She asked me if I heard what she was hearing and as I listened you could hear a sound like somebody was rustling papers or  something, all of a sudden my son came stumbling into the room and told me his comic books were flying around! We ran in there and all across his bed and on the floor were his comic books (he had quite a collection). I was just freaked out. Again we all went downstairs and waited for my husband to get home from work. At this point I think he was starting to think we were a bunch of fraidy cats.

The more I thought about what was happening I began to really worry that whatever it was might hurt my son and I started to pray that God would step in and get rid of it. I called our Pastor at that time and told him all that had been going on. Not sure if he believed me or not but he came over and said a prayer with me and prayed a blessing on my family.  The smell left and it left just as quickly as it started. There was not even a remnant of the scent, nothing.  The house felt better but I still was uneasy, I would still hear the walking occasionally. Shortly after that we bought some country property and moved.  I have thought of that house many times and wondered what the heck it was. I never felt like it was a ghost, it felt really evil. I read someplace that smells like that can be associated with evil.  I hope to not ever have that happen again.

The home I live in now fells good although I have had a couple of experiences here but nothing like the before but thats another story for a later time isn't it....

Haunted Memories...

Even as a kid I remember hearing strange bumps in the night. I remember that it was the fall of the year and the wind had been howling. We were supposed to be snugged down in our beds fast asleep but even though my eyes were closed I was wide awake. There are noises at night on a farm that are familiar. You could always hear the tin tub bumping against the house when it was windy and the cats were always scrambling around the back porch coming and going from late night hunts.  Dogs barked and every once in awhile a car would go down the road but not very often. An even more spookier familiar noise was the sound of a Bob Cat roaming the back woods with its call that sounded like a baby crying that had been abandoned. Then there was the dreaded sound of hysterical chickens when something was trying to get into the hen house usually an old Wiesel or stray dog. But the sound I dreaded most was one nobody else in the family ever mentioned they heard...

I tried not to listen but I guess I drank way too much sweet tea as a kid.  I think I had always heard this particular sound but I was always afraid to wake up my parents and tell them about it.  Of all the weirdest things to hear was the old hand water pump pumping away. Now some will think so what but a pump don't work unless there is an arm and a hand attached to the handle!  I am not sure why I was afraid to tell my parents, maybe they would think I was crazy!  I told my brother once and he said he had never heard it but maybe it was a thirsty hunter.

Anyway the years passed and we moved away to the big city leaving behind our neighbors and friends. Several years had went by and I learned that our neighbors who had lived across the road from us, Ms Molly and Mr Elmer, had moved into our old house. We visited them one summer and while Mom and Dad stayed down the road with other friends they left me at our old house to spend the night. I was about 13 and I was to sleep on the couch in the living room. I had almost forgot about the sound of someone pumping the water pump. I could hear Ms Molly and Mr Elmer snoring softly, their clock was ticking and no television was allowed even though I was in the living room. Lights out meant the TV had to be off.  Just as I was finally getting sleepy the pump started. I was so afraid I could barely breathe. It lasted about 3 minutes, seemed like 3 hours and then it finally stopped.  Not sure if I passed out from fear or I finally went to sleep on my own. To this day thinking about that really gives me the creeps. Especially if the wind has picked up and its a cool fall night...

Got my mantle did...

Well after a long hot summer the hubby was finally able to go back to work after falling out of Mrs Brown's tree. Poor guy, tree trimming ain't what its cracked up to be I guess. He's all mended and finally we are getting a little bit of a normal routine going again.

I was finally able to drag out a few fall decorations and throw some on the old mantle. Other than that I have not been able to sew or craft but hope to get to do a little soon. Maybe I will do up the back porch in the morning, who knows... maybe even pull a few weeds. Have a great fall everyone and prim blessings to all!

Old Clothes Pins & A Sock Horse

I was going through some old boxes today of patterns and things I kept and came across these two. I am posting them because maybe there is a little one at home who is lonesome because big sister or big brother have gone back to school. Just a little something for them to do. 

Blessings!

Garden's of The Past...

 When I was a little girl I loved Ms. Molly's garden. It was as secret as you could get.  Her yard was mostly shady but over on the east side of her property sat her garden, no shadows to dim the sunlight.  Her garden however was surrounded by a 6 foot plank fence made from barn siding. Each plank fit closely together so neither dog or stray animal could get in to it. The gate was made of the same material and had a large iron bale handle that fit over a rusty protrusion and that kept it from being invaded by anything. She didn't let just anybody in her garden...

Ms. Molly was  short, slender and freckled. A real country beauty with little wire rim glasses and silver streaks running through her once blazing head of red hair of which she always wore in a tight bun.. On weekdays she wore work clothes, jeans and a checkered blouse of some kind and always an apron. On Saturday and Sunday she always wore a dress and hose, she rolled her hose down to her knees and held them up with little elastic garters.  Although I knew her and Mr. Elmer's last name very well I always called them by Ms. Molly and Mr. Elmer, I think its a "southern thing."

 Her garden was like a Cathedral, way more respectful and perfect than our family's garden. I recall watching her pull her carrots one year and it seemed they slipped out of the ground like that had been greased. Her soil was a sandy rich loam. She took great care to make it that way. She told me once that her biggest gardening secret was her turkeys.  In the fall when every little thing had been harvested she would lock her turkeys in the garden during the day with a tub of cold water. They would pick and poop and pick some more all across the rows. Their feet would scratch up the soil and work up any stray weed seeds or weeds and then nature would take it's course and amend the soil.

 Ms. Molly was my make believe Grandmother, though I never told her so. She had all the qualities that I would think a grandmother should have. Physical affection was not her strong point but her words were like hugs to me . She would tell me about the farmer who was always fighting a rabbit because he was trying to steal his carrots and cabbages as she worked along her rows picking and weeding, she could squat down a garden row it seemed for hours. I learned a lot about the soil from her. She was my first garden guru and I was very close to her. I know when I tell my grandchildren some little tidbit of something I think I know I always hope that they remember and are able to use that knowledge when the time comes someday. So if I remember things I was told maybe they will remember, maybe there is hope, maybe they were listening after all.

As years went by I no longer lived the country life and gardening was far from my mind. I thought I would marry and stay in the Windy City but I didn't. Circumstances brought me to town life in Indiana, I didn't live in an apartment anymore, I lived in a house with a yard. I thought I would grow my first garden...

I just happened to be fortunate enough to live next door to another garden diva who would try her best to teach me the way in which my garden should grow, Mrs. Timmons.   Mrs. Timmons had been a school teacher, never had any children of her own and took care of her husband of many years who was bedridden from a severe stroke.  I became her project, or my garden did. 

She told me I must till down deeper into my garden so the roots would be able to grow freely. I learned that since my garden would be in new ground there would be no need to fertilize that year. I would also be told to water deep or I would cause the root system to be shallow and that wouldn't be good for leaf and fruit development.  I was told not to work in a wet garden, this could spread disease, to chop my weeds off at dirt level instead of stirring up the ground when I was weeding because I would kick up dormant weed seeds and just cause more weeds.  If I was to use any fertilizer at all it should be manure tea, she felt it did not burn the plants and was weak enough that you could almost water with it everyday.  We would go to our local zoo and load hubby's truck up with Zoo doo. It was like gold! They won't let you do that anymore however... I think they sell it now.  I used to wonder how much was monkey poo and how much was horse manure, what was the ratio.  I not only learned about vegetable gardening from her but also the art of raising flowers as well and she taught me how to can and freeze and not to waste.  I would come home from the store and my storm door would be open just a little and there sitting on the thresh hold would be a quart jar of beans and a clove of garlic sitting on top.  She wasn't just being nice she was saying in her own way that she was doing her canning now and I better get to mine.  Those years were so good. We canned everything we could. I took her to pick strawberries and blueberries, we made catsupTimmons had passed away and I cried all day... I expect to see her someday in another garden setting.

Well one day we finally bought some land and I thought I am finally homesteading. That first garden on our land was so big I worked in it from the time I got up till it was time for bed. Everybody in the family was hauling produce to work in the trunks of their cars to sell or give away. I canned 104 jars of grape juice of which our teen age son drank all but four I think. He called it the nectar of the gods. He'd stick one in the frig on his way out the door to school and drink it when he came home from school that day.

I remember doing 12 dozen ears of corn late one night. When the last kernel of corn was cut it was daylight.  But as time wore on the garden got smaller and I went to work. Eventually I went back to school and became a nurse. We bought a new house and with it dug a new garden. We were still in the country but on a smaller piece of land, much easier to take care of. It was that garden that I planted my first herb garden and learned what I could about their use.  We did that for seven years and eventually moved back to the city to be closer to the grand babies. I was selfish, I didn't want them to go to a babysitter while Mom and Dad worked, I wanted to keep them. And so I did and here I am now with my little primitive city garden and I am starting to can again and even used manure tea this year. My water bill is staggering however because we  have not gotten much rain. I figure maybe God is trying to kill out something in our area, maybe a pest or a plague, I certainly don't know the mind of God.  I guess that I think gardening is a good thing, a healthy thing. I know the Bible says that God liked to walk in His garden in the cool of the day, me too...

What is dirt poor anyway?

I heard it said a lot when I was little, "we are dirt poor."  Well, I knew we didn't have much. We lived in a 3 room house. Momma and Daddy, Aunt Berthy and Grandpa, my brother Bobby and then me all stuffed into those little rooms. I know we had a couple of dogs and always an old cat or two. Sometimes we had a car and sometimes we didn't. You could walk to town if you had to but it was a good long walk for sure and a real burden if you had to carry a sack of groceries or a bag of "commodities."  Wondering what the heck commodities were?  Poor folk food, gritty peanut butter, powdered eggs and milk and good old government cheese. I stood in line with my Daddy many times to get a bag of that stuff and we were glad to get it.

My Mother was known for always being able to make something out of nothing, she was like a legend for that.  She could take a can of mackerel and make a gravy that went with it that not only made it go farther but tasted like a million dollars.  She made biscuits three times a day, store bought bread was called lite bread for some reason and Daddy hated the stuff. When you got cake or some other sweet for a meal it was usually on Sunday and not every Sunday either.  Any scraps went to the dogs and cats, I remember the cats were fed on top of an old lean too shed right on the tin roof. Their little nails made a weird little sound on the roof while they were chowing down. Momma did this so the dogs would not run them off their food I guess.  I remember her making corn bread for the dogs when scraps were pretty lean, they called it dog bread. I always had to have me a piece of that dog bread.  Now that I am grown I make dog gravy for my dogs and our youngest grandbaby always wants to know if she can have some  dog gravy too...

The Avon lady still came around even though I am sure she knew my Mother couldn't afford much. I remember seeing all her goods in the trunk of her pretty car. Somehow Momma would manage to buy a dollar tube of lipstick every once in awhile. Then there was the little sample lipsticks that came in tiny metal tubes, the Avon lady never left without giving me one. I called them little girl lipsticks.

The garden was huge and had to be. She canned everything she could get her hands on so her family would have enough to eat during the lean Tennessee winter time, if there was no work on the farm to do Daddy didn't get paid. I remember those times and they were tough. In the fall Daddy and me would go pick up pecans and sell them in the next town, I always thought that was fun. He would carry them to a big office building and sell them to the secretaries there.  Other ways were thought of to make money too. My Daddy was the original picker, he would scrap year round. He also knew where a furniture company dumped its wood scraps and with this he would make lawn chairs and sell them in the summer.  I helped some too, I had a fishing worm business and we sold them down at the mailbox at the end of our lane to passing fishermen. They would toot their car horns and out I would run to get their order.  On one side of my playhouse Daddy had built a worm bed and he fed them coffee grounds and other trimmings. I would use an old coffee can and scoop out a nice worm box full and run them back to their car.  One of the customers would always slip me a tootsie roll and ask me where did you get head of hair girl, I always said I got it from Daddy, the man would laugh... (Daddy was about bald)

I also had a friend in the sky, a crop duster man.  This is going to make you cringe but nobody knew how bad that dust was back then, I would run along side the plane and could feel the wet dust hit my skin. One time he came in the fall and landed his plane in the field, he brought me a bushel of apples from his orchard. I will never forget that. There were a lot of older folks that were good to me too. Our neighbors across the road would always bring me something every time they did their grocery shopping. They pumped water from our well because theirs didn't taste good  and when I would see Mr. Elmer coming with his water bucket I just knew he had a big Zero candy bar in his shirt pocket with my name on it.  That was back when candy bars were big and they were only a nickel....

In the summer I hardly every played with other children. There weren't any around. So I filled my days with dogs and cats and my imaginary friend, Begal.  Begal came to me in the field. There was an ancient homestead way behind our house at the edge of the "bottom." They called it that because it was kind of a wetland and when the Mississippi overflowed it would hit there first. Anyway me and Daddy went back to that homestead to poke around, he was always looking for arrowheads and such. I guess there had been a large Indian encampment back there way back in time. The homestead had been burnt to the ground by them. I just remember Begal being with me from that day, she was quiet and big eyed and I led her around by the hand. I watch a lot of Ghost Hunters on TV and sometimes I wonder if Begal was imaginary? Our first grandbaby was about two and I gave her a little soft doll and it reminded me of Begal, we named her that. She carried that baby doll everywhere and one day she was lost for good. I went home and cried my eyes out. Not sure why, it just seemed so very sad to me. I think my daughter in law thought I had truly lost my mind.

As I said earlier my Aunt Berthy and my Grandpa Em lived with us.  Berthy was feeble and Grandpa was blind. I was either tying a shoe or cutting up some body's meat! lol I loved them both. When we eventually moved it was very traumatic for me to leave Berthy behind but she was very sick and needed to be in a nursing home. Grandpa went to live with his other daughter because he didn't want to go north...

We used to visit my Momma's older sister Vetra, she lived in Memphis in a big old Victorian with three stories. She was the most precious person. Her husband was Uncle Elbert, he always wore a neck brace and was going somewhere for treatments.  He liked to play cards and so did my Daddy. Uncle Elbert had a sister name Ethel. She was a little person, I loved her to pieces. All her clothes and shoes fit me and I was only about eight years old. She lived on the third floor. They would all play cards together and I would fly up the three floors, fling her bedroom door open and head for her closet. I would try on everything the poor woman had but I was always careful to hang it back up and put the shoes away. It was like fashion heaven! lol Aunt Vetra had a son who lived with them and he was a peddler, he had a pack he would carry on his back around town and sell from. I remember he sold a lot of little sewing items like pin cushions and needle cards, thimbles and thread. I think that may be one of the reasons I deal in domestics, he let me go through his pack on a regular basis. He was a dear, dear man. He taught me how to play the game of Solitaire...

At school I guess I was one of the poorest kids there but I withstood it and kept to myself. I actually was relieved when we moved north but I know there is a lot of the south that I miss and that I missed... I was lucky because I did have a benefactor not only for clothes but for church going and Bible learning, thank you Mrs Cannon, someday when we all get up to heaven I am going to run over to you and hug your neck and thank you for being Jesus with the skin on... you have no idea...  I always tell people at church that no matter the struggle of dragging somebody else's little kid along to church its so worth it, you have no idea really what you will be doing for that child.  When I hear the education phrase "no child left behind" I always think of that in another way, a Mrs. Cannon kind of way.

So I filled my days with raising worms, fishing, going to school, kicking up clods of dirt looking for arrow heads and laying in the grass looking for tiny little frogs under the Tiger Lillie's that grew in a circle around the tree. Momma was always afraid I would get bit by a snake but I never did.

I guess growing up dirt poor can mean many things, if it just means the house I lived in or the clothes I wore or the food I ate I guess you could say that I truly was dirt poor but not in my soul. My soul was rich with what the next day held...

We're havin a heat wave, a tropical heat wave.... DANG!

OK well, its hot enough and dry enough I suppose its maybe time for some rain? I hope the Good Lord has us on his list!  Anyway I have been watering the garden and trying to keep the weeds pulled now that Hubby is doing so much better. We are hoping he can return to work in a few weeks. This staying home and eating beans just ain't how we like to roll!

I have pickles by the bucket load and finally tore the ones out in the garden, them and "their powdery mildew" were just too ugly to look at anymore combined with the scorching of the sun adding to their plight... But the pickles were good, didn't seem to bother them too much.  We still have one vine that runs along side the house, its a different kind and it didn't get the mildew too bad.

The tomatoes seem to be doing just fine but I am afraid they are all going to try and ripen at one time. The elderly lady that I learned gardening from said when the green starts to turn a whitish color they are getting ready to ripen, lots of them look that way to me!

The flowers are holding their own but not doing as well if they would of gotten regular rain intervals. The yard grass is dead but the weedy grass seems to be twice its normal size.

  The other day we went to the Amish fruit market and its out in the middle of the countryside so I took a bucket and small shovel with me and stopped on the road and scooped up some horsie poo and made manure tea out of it for the tomatoes. I think it gave them a boost. The tea does not smell as bad like it does when you side dress the plants with the pure stuff, it usually does not burn the plants up either.

 The japeleanos are small this year and pretty hot but I still managed to make a few jars of jelly with them. My husband likes it with cream cheese and Ritz crackers, me too!  The plants are hanging on but the peppers are slowing way down in production. I keep wanting to pull them out but "he" won't let me...

The beans have taken over the arbor as you can see but some little buggy boo is eating the leaves. I do see some blooms but no beans yet. These are Kentucky Wonder pole beans and they are later producers.  I did can 7 quarts of beans that I bought at the fruit market. I also will be making pickled beets for my son soon. I would like to do some corn, hope its not too high this year.

Well I guess I better close this gate up and go on in the house and scratch up some supper. The husband is layed out in the bed taking a much deserved nap. He was able to mow and trim today but I think he over did it.  Tonight is my ghost hunter shows, I'll be watching the tube after supper with my feet up and swilling down sweet tea!

See Yall later!

5th of July 1953

My Grandparents

They lived on a cotton farm in rural TN and Daddy had sent for the doctor.  It was a 3 room sharecropper house with no running water or inside bathroom. The kitchen had a wood cook stove and a flour barrel, table and cane seat chairs. There was a refrigerator and an old baking cabinet. A makeshift counter stood in front of the window that held a water bucket, dipper and a wash pan. Above the wash pan hung an old medicine cabinet that held aspirin and shaving items.  The curtains on the window were made on her treadle and what baby things that awaited the arrival were made by her hands. The clock ticked on and the pain worsened. She was afraid because she was 41 and not in the best of health and would the Dr. Olds get there soon enough to help...

Down the road came a black car, a nice black car. Daddy knew it to be Dr. Old's car.  He pulled in the driveway and came in with his black bag.  He spoke softly with Daddy and told him the charge would be fifty dollars.  He and Daddy went in to Momma. She was covered in sweat and the pain had become different. She had bore 3 other children that lived and this time it was much more painful, worse that she ever could remember.

The room was dark and stuffy, the window was open but no breeze was blowing. The bed that held her and the unborn child was the same bed her own Mother had died in just a few years before. Grandmother died of sepsis from cutting up a rabbit that was sickly and cutting herself and tainting her own blood with the rabbits, she lasted only three days. That same window is where Grandmother had seen the white doves gathering just before her last breath.

 She told Daddy she had listened to the fireworks at the country park all night and she could here them having a big party. Sound carries out in the countryside when there are no buildings much to stop it, the park was about 3 miles away.  She tried to talk to Dr. Olds but was not making much sense, he took Daddy out in the front room. "We will have to give her morphine and I will have to help her because she is beyond helping. If I don't put her out her heart will give out on her I am afraid."  Sometime in the middle of the morning of July 5th, 1953 Dr. Olds brought me into this world with all his might and all his knowledge. Momma slept for almost two days and so Daddy named me, after his old girlfriend. I was supposed to be named Christine, not Gwendolyn... Momma never said one way or another if that bothered her, she was just smile.

That is the story I was told whenever I asked about my start in life.  I guess I am a true primitive, made when there was not much and brought into a house that was well worn. I have kept my story in my heart and am sharing it this July 5th, 2011.